I started working out about a year ago. Up until last November, I primarily worked from home and I found that because I was so stationary, being isolated also started to feel normal because I was still managing to be productive. Sometimes it felt so unnecessary to go outside to the point where some weeks I would only leave the apartment on the weekends.
Knowing that the gym would motivate me to move outweighed the mental benefits it brought. I would say that I have a better balance which is centred around feeling less robotic. I wouldn’t call myself a gym rat, that is someone who lives in the gym but I can say I have spent ample time in it to know that gym, coupled with my Instagram feed can create chaos for my self-esteem despite the former being so good as it relates creating a happy/positive feeling by releasing endorphins. In spite of feeling less robotic, sometimes it felt like I was going in circles when I looked at fitness videos online. Comparison is truly the thief of joy.
I have always been happy with my body. I think my only physical insecurity would have been my acne. Perhaps this is because in most of the images marketed to me for the most part of my life, I have always felt represented in terms of body structure more or less. For the first time ever in my life, I now find that on occasion I have to mentally tell myself that there is no reason to indulge in faux problems. Why do I now constantly feel the need to span my hand across my lower back to ensure it isn’t broader than my hand? This is how overexposure changes how you internalize body image. We may not have realized it, because it has seamlessly found its way into being falsely advertised to us by celebrities via appetite-suppressant lollipops and flat tummy teas and the like.
Perfection has always been the key message from the fashion and beauty industries even if they themselves create it, not by the means of their products, but rather by a few clicks in photo-editing software. Earlier this week, I came across a ‘call-out’ article which featured Khloé Kardashian and actress Jameela Jamil. Khloé, who was photographed next to her flat-tummy tea, enraged Jameela who accused her of misrepresentation. She noted in her argument that the tea can’t transform young impressionable girls and Khloe should make it known that she has personal trainers, the best chefs and possibly a surgeon who were responsible for the way she looks.
For someone who has felt secure for the most part of her life who is now feeling pressured, I can’t begin to imagine the feelings of someone who hasn’t. I would imagine their openness to wanting to try anything that would give them the push to continue would be at the top of their game. Perhaps even blindly trusting any and everything to work. The problem with this type of marketing is that it promotes a health and wellness culture that diminishes your self-esteem even if it helps you in some small way because quite frankly, the visual results are not reflective in any shape or form.
If we categorize fitness/wellness and the constant battle of perfection as one it will no longer serve as a positive thing but rather a danger to a holistic healthy lifestyle. Perfection just isn’t possible. Sleep is one of the most critical elements when it comes to maintaining a healthy body but because no one can bottle this up or sell it to you through an app, it is often left out of the dialogue. Buying into an ideal that there is some overnight remedy for perfection ruins the genuine nature of something that is supposed to help us by way of consistency. There are no short cuts to feeling and looking better. As clichéd as it may sound, it is truly up to you in every sense. http://instagram.com/theonlinerunway
